for people who care about the West

Congressional group plans for oil's decline

Within the next 20 years, worldwide oil production
will likely peak and no longer meet demand (HCN, 12/12/05: Final
Energy Frontier). Now, some members of Congress are saying we need
to prepare for life after that point.

"We are going to
peak, and we should be planning for it, and we’re not," says
Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Last year’s energy bill, he says,
amounted to denial on this issue: The bill dumped most of its $80
billion into non-renewable energy sources, such as oil, natural gas
and coal.

In October, Udall and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett,
R-Md., formed the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus to begin discussing
preparations for a post-peak world. The caucus’s nine members
include two other Western representatives, Mark Udall, D-Colo., and
Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz. They have asked fellow representatives
to sponsor a resolution supporting a national energy initiative to
"accelerate the transition to renewable fuels and a sustainable,
clean energy economy." The scale of such an undertaking is
comparable, Tom Udall says, to "sending man to the moon."

So far, a bipartisan group of 18 of the House’s 435 members
has signed on. Passing the resolution requires a majority vote,
which would signal the House’s intent to work seriously on
peak oil issues. Tom Udall and other representatives have
introduced related legislation, including a nationwide renewable
energy requirement for utilities.

Reducing the oil
consumed by transportation is also crucial, because it accounts for
70 percent of the country’s annual oil use, says Steve
Andrews, co-founder of the nonprofit Association for the Study of
Peak Oil-U.S.A. Short-term fixes include significantly improving
fuel efficiency in cars and light trucks, and switching to trains
for long-distance shipping, he says; long-term solutions include a
transition to renewable biofuels and pluggable hybrid-electric
vehicles.

Time is tight, notes Tom Udall: "Many experts
believe that even 10 years is not enough to plan for the arrival of
peak oil." The issue should be key in the 2008 presidential
campaign, he says: "Imagine the effect of a president saying this
is one of the central challenges of our time."